Daily Current Affairs for UPSC CSE
Topics Covered
- Oil Bonds
- Why cat’s and dogs are less suspetible to covid
- Facts for Prelims
1 . Oil Bonds
Context : Over the last one year, as retail prices of petrol, diesel and other petroleum products have surged, the government has attracted criticism. On several occasions, including last week, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has sought to counter such criticism by claiming that the current government cannot bring down taxes (and, as a consequence, prices) because it has to pay for the oil bonds issued by the Congress-led UPA government.
How much of fuel prices is tax?
- There are two components to the domestic retail price — the price of crude oil itself, and the taxes levied on this basic price. Together they make up the retail price. The taxes vary from one product to another.
- Taxes account for 50% of the total retail price for a litre of petrol, and 44% for a litre of diesel
What are oil bonds? Why were they issued?
- When fuel prices were too high for domestic consumers, governments in the past often asked oil marketing companies (OMCs) to avoid charging consumers the full price.
- But if oil companies don’t get paid, they would become unprofitable. To address this, the government said it would pay the difference. But again, if the government paid that amount in cash, it would have been pointless, because then the government would have had to tax the same people to collect the money to pay the OMCs. This is where oil bonds come in.
- An oil bond is an IOU, or a promissory note issued by the government to the OMCs, in lieu of cash that the government would have given them so that these companies don’t charge the public the full price of fuel.
- An oil bond says the government will pay the oil marketing company the sum of, say, Rs 1,000 crore in 10 years. And to compensate the OMC for not having this money straightaway, the government will pay it, say, 8% (or Rs 80 crore) each year until the bond matures.
- Thus, by issuing such oil bonds, the government of the day is able to protect/ subsidise the consumers without either ruining the profitability of the OMC or running a huge budget deficit itself.
- Oil bonds were issued by several governments in the past. But the ones in question now are the ones which the UPA government issued.
Repayment
- There are two components of oil bonds that need to be paid off: the annual interest payment, and the final payment at the end of the bond’s tenure.
- By issuing such bonds, a government can defer the full payment by 5 or 10 or 20 years, and in the interim just pay the interest costs.
2 . Why cat’s and dogs are less suspetible to covid
Context : But the results of a small study carried out in Spain and posted in a preprint server medRxiv, which is yet to be peer-reviewed, has found that dogs and cats do not easily get infected by the Omicron variant
Background
- The results of a small study carried out in Spain and posted in a preprint server medRxiv, which is yet to be peer-reviewed, has found that dogs and cats do not easily get infected by the Omicron variant. This despite the owners having had high contact with their pets and the sampling done at the “best time for the detection of the disease
- Even when they do get infected, the viral load is less and the shedding of viral RNA lasts for only a brief period. Even the pet dogs and cats that tested positive for Omicron did not show any symptoms.
Details of the Study
- The study was carried out on 50 dogs, 28 cats, and one rabbit when the pet owners were in quarantine
- Of the 78 dogs and cats tested for the virus, only seven cats and one dog tested positive for the Omicron variant, which is 10.13% of the total number of pets tested.
- Also, the researchers were not able to isolate the Omicron variant virus for any of the pets that tested positive, which the researchers believe is a strong indication of the low viral load. Surprisingly, neutralising antibodies were not detected in any of the pets that tested positive for the virus.
- The low susceptibility of dogs and cats to the Omicron variant is in striking contrast to susceptibility to the Alpha and Delta variants and the absence of symptoms in pets that tested positive for the Omicron variant unlike the other two variants.
Reasons
- One reason why dogs and cats show less susceptibility to the Omicron variant could be the low binding ability of the virus with cells. As per a study published in the Journal of Genetics and Genomics, the Omicron variant might have emerged in mice and then spread to humans.
- The authors from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing do cite three possible scenarios under which the Omicron variant could have emerged. The first hypothesis is the evolution and spread in a small population that was neither vaccinated nor tested and genomes sequenced. The second hypothesis is an immunocompromised individual providing a perfect environment for the virus to persist in the host and undergo numerous mutations. The third is the possible origin in mice before jumping to humans.
3 . Facts for Prelims
Cham monument
- The temple complex in Vietnam was built in the 9th century A.D. under the reign of King Indravarman II who also built the famous Dong Duong Buddhist Monastery in Quang Nam Province. French experts in 1903-1904 had discovered the temple complex in a dilapidated condition. During excavations at that time, the French archaeologists had described the presence of one Shiva Linga in Group ‘A’ at the temple site.
- In 2010, as part of a India-Vietnam cultural exchange programme, a two-member ASI team visited Vietnam to make a preliminary assessment of the task to conserve the Cham monuments, including the UNESCO World Heritage My Son group of temples constructed by the kings of Champa between the 4th and 14th centuries AD. An MoU was signed in October 2014, and execution of the project began with three group of temples.
e – dar portal
- The Ministry of Roads, Transport and Highways (MoRTH) has developed the portal named ‘e-DAR’ (e-Detailed Accident Report).
- A web portal designed by the government in consultation with insurance companies will provide instant information on road accidents with a few clicks and help accelerate accident compensation claims, bringing relief to victims’ families.
- Digitalised Detailed Accident Reports (DAR) will be uploaded on the portal for easy access. The web portal will be linked to the Integrated Road Accident Database (iRAD). From iRAD, applications to more than 90% of the datasets would be pushed directly to the e-DAR. Stakeholders like the police, road authorities, hospitals, etc., are required to enter very minimal information for the e-DAR forms. Thus, e-DAR would be an extension and e-version of iRAD.
- The portal would be linked to other government portals like Vaahan and would get access to information on driving licence details and registration of vehicles
- For the benefit of investigating officers, the portal would provide geo tagging of the exact accident spot along with the site map. This would notify the investigating officer on his distance from the spot of the incident in the event the portal is accessed from any other location.
- Details like photos, video of the accident spot, damaged vehicles, injured victims, eye-witnesses, etc., would be uploaded immediately on the portal.
- “Apart from the state police, an engineer from the Public Works Department or the local body will receive an alert on his mobile device and the official concerned will then visit the accident site, to examine it, and feed the required details, such as the road design. Hotspots for accidents would also be identified so as to obtain solutions to avoid accidents at these hotspots
National Indigenisation and innovation organisation
- The Naval Innovation and Indigenisation Organisation (NIIO) aims at placing dedicated structures for the end-users to interact with academia and industry towards fostering innovation and indigenisation for self-reliance in defence.
- NIIO is a three-tiered organisation, that includes the Naval Technology Acceleration Council (N-TAC) to bring together the twin aspects of innovation and indigenisation. A working group under the N-TAC implements the projects. Further, a Technology Development Acceleration Cell (TDAC) has also been created for induction of emerging disruptive technology in an accelerated time frame.